EMC World 2009: VMware will stay independent

EMCused its annual user conference this week as an opportunity to reaffirm its promise to keep VMware as an independent company.

Chad Sakac, vice president of the VMware Technology Alliance at EMC, told IT PRO at EMC World 2009: “We are determined to leave them independent. Both EMC customers and non-EMC customers have thanked us. We want everyone to have access to the technology but come to EMC on merit.”

EMC holds an 84 per cent share of VMware which it acquired five years ago. It said then that it would stay independent, even when in 2007 10 per cent of its shares went public, with Intel and Cisco picking up two per cent each. Sakac says it is going to stay that way.

He said: “No-one knows what is around the corner but it would be short sited of us to do it as this point. There are no plans [to remove its independence] in the works now and no plans to do so in the future.”

When asked if VMware was superior to its competitors Sakac was a bit more subdued due to its other ties.

He said: “EMC is also a tech partner of Microsoft, Oracle and Citrix as well as VMware. But from EMCs perspective, VMware's view of the data centre is transformative. Microsoft is a strong partner, no question, but its world view is Windows centric.”

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